A Boston College sports blog capturing the highs and lows of being a BC fan living 1,000 miles from Chestnut Hill.

Friday, October 19, 2007

Rooting guide and weekend plan

No football for us this weekend, so the posting will be light. I'll continue the basketball player previews and then post an interview with another national basketball writer who has BC ties. I'll also have some VT content up late this weekend. Now onto who I am rooting for this Saturday around the ACC.

Army vs Georgia Tech. We need GT to win and help our strength of schedule.

Navy vs Wake Forest. Wake. For us and for the ACC.

Miami vs Florida State. We need Miami to win and give us more breathing room in the division.

East Carolina vs NC State. I can't do it. I can't root for TOB. Go Pirates.

18 comments:

There is a new Superfan Reward Program to reward students who use higher proportions of their season tickets and give extra rewards to attending low-attendance games. I pasted the text from the e-mail into google page creator for anyone interested in the full thing: http://alan.shirfan.googlepages.com/superfanrewardsprogram

I think it's a great move by the athletic department and UGBC- it will give incentive for full (or near-full ) attendance v. pushovers, and will enable all genuine fans a seat for big games. Anything to weed out weak links is a good move in my book.

The most interesting parts is that the more you use the greater chance you have of getting tickets in the next lottery and if you use all of them you get to go to a party with the team members. The whole incentive thing seems to be well done and thought out.

For BCS purposes, does the GT win help BC more than an Army win would have, or is it a wash given the commonality. I suppose there is still a (very remote) chance that GT could make the ACCCG, so that is the best way it could work out.

Proof that we are probably over-ranked: USC blows ND out of the water 38-0 while we struggled to a 13 point win. USC should be ranked ahead of BC. I also think LSU is better than BC. Oklahoma struggled against a horrible Iowa State team, so I am comfortable with BC ranked ahead of OU. Florida is a toss-up as it appears their defense is suspect. Thus, BC is most likely fairly valued at #4. Of course, losing to Va Tech on the road will drop us out of the Top 10. Conversely, winning that game would move fair value to #2. Maryland and Clemson on the road still look very scary while FSU and Miami at home look more like wins. It's going to be a month of butterflies!

Conveniently ignoring that USC lost to Stanford, aren't you, eagleboston? I'm not sure we're correctly ranked, but all you can do is beat the teams on your schedule. Poll wise, this week is critical. Conference wise, Thursday is probably our least important remaining game.

Cubicle Jockey: Do you honestly believe BC is better than USC? The only common opponent we have is Notre Dame and we both played the Irish a week apart. USC destroyed Notre Dame and we barely survived, with the score at one point being 20 - 14. Look, I said fair value for BC is number 4. That's pretty damn good. I just don't think we should be ranked ahead of USC and LSU, 2 teams that are clearly better than BC. Now, if we go down to Blacksburg and somehow come away with a victory, I become a believer that this BC team is elite. That's what it is going to take to justify a Top 2 ranking. If we lose in Blacksburg, I still believe we are a Top 10 team, and our ACC dreams remain intact.

I guess I don't believe that USC is clearly better than BC. The common opponent game is interesting, but imperfect. After all Duke beat Nothwestern and Northwestern beat Michigan State. Does that mean that Duke is better than Michigan State? Or, closer to home, BC beat Army by 20; Georgia Tech beat them by Army by 24. What does this mean about BC and GT? And how do I reconcile that with BC vs. GT? So I'm not willing to slot BC behind USC just because of who beat who by how much. At the end of the day, we both beat ND.

I think I agree with cubicle Jockey on this one. Often too much is made of margin of victory. A win is a win. That being said, if you beat someone 50-0 and another team beats them 35-34, a lot could be said about both teams, but the transitive property is rarely correct in CFB. Many variables contributed to BC's lack of an impressive win vs the Irish, and many things contributed to USC's very impressive win. For example, if you were USC, would you want to play the Irish before or after they play a very physical BC? Probably after, ND's defense looked absolutely worn out from the get go. Does USC have a good defense? Hard to say when playing such a weak offense. ND only scored one offensive TD against the Eagles, and that was helped by a very bad roughing the passer call. But this is precisely my point. Each game has its own unique variables that are difficult to measure. Hence, these debates usually get settled on the field. USC suffered the worst upset loss (point spread-wise) in CFB history. Does that mean that their players are less talented than BC? No, but it does mean that as a team, USC is not flawless. Does that make them a worse or better team than BC? Hard to say, but BC still has an unblemished record.

Let's keep our eyes on the prize and not be intimidated in Blacksburg. We CAN beat VT on their own field on a Thursday Night game.

Two Top Ten Teams - does ESPN love this or what?

I love the conversation about the rankings, etc. But as Jags says - this is for the media and fans. So to the players and coaches - let's bring this huge game home to Chestnut Hill. The polls will take care of themselves.

I'm not getting any younger - it would be really something special to win this Thursday Night.

Good point. This is all going to be decided on the field and polls don't matter until bowl assignments are divvied out. I guess we should just be excited with all of the national attention and enjoy the good times while they last. I have to pinch myself every day to make sure this isn't some insane dream. Boston College undefeated? Boston College #2? It just doesn't seem right. I think we can dream big but also temper the expectations so there is not a major letdown if we lose. Let's beat Va Tech!!!

What you have to remember about the USC/ND game was that Weis went with the backup QB over Claussen which turned out to be a big mistake.

From what I've seen, it looks like Jags is trying out different offensive strategies in every game just to see how it works. The ND game it was all underneath and short passes and ball control. They threw deep vs WF/NCS/GT a bunch, ran the ball a lot against UMass, BG, Army.

Hopefully he has a great game plan to whip that dopey beamer ball garbage.